


And there shall we align

by Olivia_Ellinora



Category: Homeland
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 19:28:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5796964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Olivia_Ellinora/pseuds/Olivia_Ellinora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times he lies and one when she tells the truth</p><p>(Post season 5 - Quinn's alive)</p>
            </blockquote>





	And there shall we align

**Author's Note:**

> Just something silly because it was an hour until my alarm was going to ring and I couldn't sleep - enjoy
> 
> Excuse all wrongs you may find. It's my before-coffee-me that has written this

i.

_He wakes up and she’s there. She’s always there these days. Her knees are tucked up against her chest, heels (when did she stop wearing sneakers) thrown in a corner, head slightly tilt and leaning in her hands. She’s got that smile that makes her look like a little girl. He tries to mirror it but admits defeat when a head ache forces him to close his eyes yet again._

It’s the worst feeling. Not being able to do anything. He wants to scream but can’t find his voice. He wants to run but can’t move his legs. He wants to tell Carrie to go live her fucking life, to take care of her daughter and to save the world. He doesn’t deserve her care and can’t take her pity. All he ever wanted from the day they met was for her to be happy, if it would be with him – even better. But he wanted to take care of _her_ , wanted to give her the world. 

 

“How do you feel?”, she gives him that look that is a mixture of sadness, hope and something he can’t put his finger on.

“Better”, he says even though he goes to bed every night wishing that his heart would just give up on him already.

 

ii.

_He wets a tissue and gently cleans the nasty scar on her chin, he then examines the rest of her body – finding darkening bruises on her abdomen and a big, ugly scrape below her left knee. All his will power goes to not grab the firearm that is hidden in a drawer and find the bastards that did this to her. Instead he hugs her tight, feeling her tense muscle relax, feeling her un-even heartbeats against his chest._

He watches Carrie dress from the bed, _their_ bed, how she slowly pulls the grey dress over her body – allowing him full view of her soft curves. He can tell that she’s nervous and he wants to tell her not to be, that she’ll be the best without a doubt. She will sneeze him off though. He just looks at her instead, still can’t get enough. Will never get enough.

 

It’s a job at the UN and he knows she would love it. Challenging (because she needs that) but not with the constant life threats (because he can’t stand that).

“Don’t’ wait up for me”, she tells him. “I’ll hopefully be late”

“I won’t”, he promises.

_Of course he will._

 

 

iii.

The things she does –

\- starting every morning with a run, no matter if it’s a thunderstorm or a heatwave. The exact same route every day: twenty blocks down, through the nice park with the lake and then the shabby one, passing by the high school and the open area where they take the dog. If she’s having ha rough week she races over it a couple of times. She’s back in fifty minutes.

 

\- swears when she cooks. She doesn’t do it at other times anymore, says that it’s a sign of bad vocabulary. It’s a miracle actually – both the cooking and that she’s laid of off throwing in a ‘fuck’ in every other sentence.

 

\- turning her gaze at him and bites her lip to cover a smile. Then she looks away before she meets his eyes, this time letting her feelings show. It’s like she still doesn’t believe he’s there, that he’s going to disappear. Again.

 

\- when Frannie acts out or if they fight (because they do, because they are them) or if she is stressed with work - she solves a crossword. The one in the back of the paper that only old people do. She’s good of course and when she’s done the wrinkle at her forehead has gone away.

 

“I’m so silly aren’t I?”, she asks.

“Yeah, you are”, he smiles.

 

_No, you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me_

 

iv.

_In oppose to Carrie, he’s a light sleeper. He wakes up when it rains outside or if the dog barks. He doesn’t mind though, because she’s always besides him. A light kiss on her shoulder, sometimes a glass of water and then back to sleep again._

 

Tonight it’s light footstep on the wooden floor. Then it stops. He turns around in the bed, careful not to wake Carrie as he untangles himself from her, and knows that there will be a little girl standing in the door: hair in a French braid, Winnie the Pooh pyjama and her teddy bear tight to the chest.

“I can’t sleep”, she whispers, the s in sleep becoming a th, _theep._ He pats on the spot in the middle of him and Carrie.

“Come here, princess”

“I had a nightmare”, she explains. “Can you read to me?”.

He then rises from the bed instead.

“Of course, but we don’t wanna wake mommy, let’s go to your bed.”. She picks out the Harry Potter book. He thought Carrie was stupid when she started to read that one to a four-year-old, but she actually loves it. He does to, even if he’d never admit it. He lets her rest her head on his shoulder while he reads and doesn’t stop until she starts to yawns drowsily, then gives the top of her head a light kiss and says.

“You’re the best girl in the world, I love you _so_ much”, it’s half a lie. Actually there is two.

 

v.

 _Something changed in him the first time he saw her and from that moment and on he’s had a fierce need to protect her. It had felt like a weakness then. Now her smiles, her happiness, is his and he wants to spend the rest of his,_ their, _life that way._

 

With an almost four-year-old in the family real date nights are rare. Tonight they have left Frannie in Maggie’s care and are going out to dinner with one of Carrie’s co-workers and his better half. Carrie could have proposed a handful ideas she found more suitable for a night for grown ups, but they actually have had a nice time this far. They are at an intimate place in SoHo and she is astonished by how normal this feels. A regular, yet exciting, job, friends that they can talk about music, their children and travel plans with – and she isn’t bored the slightest. Quinn’s handling most of the conversation and even though she would never tell him her heart swells with proudness over how good he’s doing – how far he’s come from the stuttering and broken man he was just a year ago. She takes a sip of her wine – expensive and for the solely purpose of taste.

 

“What are you doing?”, Carrie exclaims at the sight of Quinn putting a cherry tomato from his salad into his mouth. She can picture so many meals over the years – lunches and take-away dinners at Langley, a few occasions in Islamabad, when he has transferred his tomatoes on to her plate.

“You hate tomatoes”, she continues – not reflecting over how the other couple interprets it. He just gives her that smile of his, the one that stills feel a little foreign because it’s not only filled with love but also with happiness.

“No, but you love them”

 

vi.

_They have never been ordinary. Never taken the patch that people usually do. And maybe because of that the ring on her finger isn’t important per see. It’s what it stands for. A future – with all that may bring._

 

She’s been a little different lately, just small things and at first he didn’t notice it at all. Some days she stays up working until the early morning hours, at other times she can’t get enough sleep – last week she even missed a meeting. She takes up the habit of drumming her fingers against the table – she always did that at Langley and it drove him crazy. Sometimes she stops talking in the middle of a sentence. It’s small things that wouldn’t worry him if it was any one else.

 

He chooses to call Maggie. It’s the weak choice, he knows, but he senses that she’s fragile and don’t want to upset Carrie her if it’s nothing. He asks for signs and doesn’t get more calm by that and starts to count the pills on the bathroom sink before he goes to bed and spends more time than he wants to admit wondering if it’s his fault.

 

He has just put Frannie to bed, which proves way harder when she gets older, and he founds her sitting legs crossed on the couch. For once she’s not reading any case but one of his books well read books, _Great expectations._ She’s sipping on a cup of tea – another new habit, she’s always been a coffee kind of person. She looks relaxed and he wants to release to ball of anxiety that has been building in his guts.

“She had me sing the same lullaby four times”, he says. His tone light but with a hint of mock annoyance.

“She has you wrapped around her fingers”, she answers, shifting her gaze from the book to him and then making a sigh of pleasure as he sits down besides her, gently pulling her feet in to his lap hand starts to knead the balls of her feet.

“Can I ask you something”, he says a moment later and he feels her tense at that. They have come to a point in their relationship were they know exactly what the other will say long before it actually comes out of their mouths, and he is not the kind of guy who asks for permission to do _anything_ really. After a moments silence she nods her head, still a little hesitant.

“Promise not to get mad”, he waits for the second nod that he knows is coming.

“I love you so much and I said that I’ve seen you at your worst and, I’m aware that this is not it, but you’ve seemed different lately. Are you relapsing?”

She pulls her feet away from him, curling up in the corner of he sofa, avoiding his worried eyes. She reminds him a little of the girl she was when he first met her then and with a hand on her jaw he turns he forces her to look at him.

“Carrie”, he starts while his heart aches. She gives him a smile, the one that makes her look a little like a frightened animal. Lost and scared. When she speaks her voice matches the smile – almost to quiet to hear.

“I’m pregnant”

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
